


Don't Let Go

by Chainna



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agent Maine - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reunions, mainewash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 08:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7837288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainna/pseuds/Chainna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Washington/Maine fic based off of the pinterest prompt:<br/>Imagine your OTP seeing each other again after years of being apart. Imagine them whispering each other's names in shock, not believing the love of their life is standing in front of them after so long. Imagine them running towards each other with tears in their eyes, embracing each other almost painfully desperate to touch each other after years of loneliness and only dreaming about the way it felt t hold them again. They squeeze each other like pythons and don't ever want to let go. They cry and they laugh and only pull back to choke out, "I've missed you so much," only to kiss each other with so much eagerness and passion and desperation because god, they're here and they're in my arms and I never want to loose them ever again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> I feel it's worth mentioning that Maine/Wash is not my OTP, not that it matters much given I'm still writing this fic...
> 
> This is just a preview of a short story that I am currently writing. I have not by any means edited this first chapter. I am only posting this as a request for Betareader/s as I have not been able to find one through any other means.

“We thought he at least deserved a burial, you know, despite how many times he tried to kill us.” Tucker’s voice carried tension the weighed on the Freelancer’s opposing him, his words earning no answer from the somber pair.

Carolina was braver then Wash. With squared shoulders she pushed past the teal armored soldier and into the room a pace behind him.

The metal door hovered open, revealing the brightly lit room beyond it. Trails of fog escaped into the warmer hallway, their ghostly grasp doing nothing to draw the blonde soldier from his spot.

“Wash-” A familiar pair of teal eyes bored into him, but the caramel skinned man never made it farther than his name. The expression of pained pity reflected on the sim trooper’s face was enough to force the proud soldier’s feet forward.

Washington’s breathing stopped as he crossed the threshold. The room was made of the same expensive metal as the rest of Hargrove’s, but the overhead light reflected too brightly through the fog of the freezing air, giving the morgue and unearthly feel that ordinarily wouldn’t have raised the hairs on the back of the soldier’s neck.

David had seen a lot of dead bodies in his life, but it had been years since he had been this unsettled by the notion. But this wasn’t just any dead body. It was Maine.  According to the ship's records, Hargrove had ‘recovered’ the Freelancer’s body from the UNSC before it could even be fished from the water where Wash had abandoned it.

His pale eyes strayed first to the bright red of Carolina’s hair, steeling himself with her presence. She wasn’t a comforting force, not towards him at least, but she was familiar, an almost constant in these types of situations and Wash had learned to take solace in her presence.

“Wash.” The voice startled the light skinned soldier, his lips drawing in a quick breath that by that point he was in desperate need of. He hadn’t expected the other Freelancer to speak, not here. It was an unspoken doctrine between them that they never acknowledged those they had lost to one another, or to anyone as turned out. But her voice was enough to force him into the task he had been so desperately avoiding. With a final step forward, Wash let his haunted blue eyes fall to the form laying lifeless on the table.

“It’s not him.” David nearly choked on the words, a mixture of horror, relief and confusion making his tongue clumsy. Wide eyes swept over the prone form of the man, his auburn hair, his freckled skin, his angled features. It wasn’t him. “What the hell is this?” His confusion giving way to anger as accusatory eyes turned on the glowing green A.I. hovering over Tucker’s shoulder.

“Exactly who I said.” Delta’s even voice carried through the silent room.

“You told us they recovered Maine’s body when they stole his armor.” Carolina spoke at last, her voice dangerously even though she did not turn to look at the A.I. as Wash had.

“That is incorrect.” The unnerving green man continued and Wash found himself understanding all of the times Tucker had taken a shot at Church, even knowing it would prove useless. “What I said,” He continued without missing a beat. “was that Charon Industries recovered the body of the Meta, and thus obtained it’s armor and subsequent enhancements.”

“But this isn’t Micheal!” Wash’s voice rose as his brittle emotions sought the familiar shield of his anger.

“Wash!” Carolina’s voice rose to meet his, drawing steel eyes on her still turned form. “Look at his neck.”

The younger Freelancer nearly scoffed, but some combinations of begrudging respect and years of emotional repression held the noise back before it could leave his lips, and he obeyed. It was easier now, to approach the body, but Wash guessed that it was due to knowing it was a stranger’s face that he would see.

The Aqua armored female lifted a hand to silently tilt the corpses head farther to one side, revealing a sight both impossible and grotesque. Implant ports haphazardly lined the man’s neck, only the first seeming to be surgically positioned. It was something he might have even expected to see marring the neck of the Meta, had Wash not grown quite so talented at repressing anything that stirred his emotions.

“What does this mean?” His voice matched Carolina’s level tone as he spoke again, careful, calculated. Objectively Wash could look at those marks, and see that this man had been something akin to the ghost of the man he had loved, but he couldn’t believe that two people could have succumbed to such an identical fate. And what was more, Wash himself had been traveling with the Meta during the days leading up to his death. Yet, this wasn’t Maine. So how could it be the Meta and how had it seemed so much like his ghost.

“Your earlier observation was correct.” Wash’s open question was to be answered by the rather cold voice of the Logic A.I. “This is not Micheal Creed, or Agent Maine as he was often known. This is the Meta, and the two are not one and the same, as we had been lead to believe.”

“What does that mean Delta?” Carolina questioned where Wash was unable. Something was stirring painfully in his chest. Something always did when his thoughts betrayed him and wandered to Maine, but this pain was different. It was almost light, almost hopeful and it was as ridiculous as it was dangerous.

“Whether it was the Director’s initial intention to have Sigma possess his partner, is unclear. Though I find it hard to believe that he would not predict such an outcome.” Wash kept his eyes from venturing towards Carolina’s profile as Delta continued his explanation, neither of them acknowledging the impact of the A.I.’s words. “Either way, once Sigma showed signs of attempting of over power Agent Maine’s mind, the Director made no attempt to halt the processes. Further, it would seem that he was actually invested in observing its outcome. Which made Maine’s relentless resistance... inconvenient. Whether the Director would have acted to impede Maine’s battle or not, is also unclear, as he was never given the chance. It would seem that Agent Maine somehow managed to remove Sigma’s implant on his own. It was later reactivated within a more… submissive mind. The result was the Meta.” Delta finished his tale as a few quick flashes of color danced around him. Though none of the other A.I. cared to make themselves visible to the human’s. Tucker wondered if Sigma was among them, and suddenly felt uneasy in his new badass armor.

“So… Maine was never the Meta?” The question was quiet, uncertain as the disbelief of its speaker laced the words.

“That is correct, Washington.”

Silence ruled the small room for several long moments, and not even its most immature denizen dared to break it.

“Then how did he, the Meta, act almost like Maine?” Wash questioned, letting himself fall back into the familiar pattern of disbelief.

“It’s quite simple. The weaker mind of Sigma’s host was lost under the A.I.’s strength. But a fragment is still a fragment. No matter his ambition, Sigma could not be human. All he could do was create a guise that would allow him to further his plan of becoming Meta. After his assault his host was left empty, void of whatever force had once occupied it, the only knowledge he had of a human mind was what he had gleaned from his time spent battling Agent Maine. Thus, his cover was obvious.” Washington relied from the weight of Delta’s words, his head spun with each new revelation that he couldn’t quite believe but wasn’t able to discard.

“Then what happened to the real Maine?” Carolina voiced the question Wash had been unable to ask, her eyes still not drifting to meet his.

“We do not know. If any of the original fragments were aware of his fate those memories were not among the armor’s data banks. We are, after all Epsilon’s fragments not Alpha’s.”

At the mention of the lost A.I. the stern faced Freelancer’s spared a glance back at the darker skinned male, finding his features hardened in a way that he was not accustomed to seeing on the younger man’s face.

Another long beat of silence passed, a quiet scuffling indicating the teal soldier’s return to impatient and boredom, but it didn’t bring a hidden smile to Wash’s face as it did to Carolina’s. “I need to find him.” David felt as if he had never spoken truer words. Micheal never became that monster that shattered his world. He might be lost to him, he might be dead, admitting that seemed to help the situation seem more real to Wash, but it didn’t quite subdue the smallest traces of hope taking root in his chest. 


End file.
